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Copyright Infringement

Pok&#233;mon AMVs, fandubs, fansubs, and anything else which uses scenes, music, or anything from the TV series is now against the law. I advise people to stop making these or, if they must, keep them private. SHOGAKUKAN PRODUCTION CO., LTD., at the time of this post, was beginning to take a much more widespread action than ever before. If you still want to watch Pok&#233;mon online, I believe you can buy them on Google Video for $1.99 USD.

Don't:
Use actual clips, voices, music, or anything else from any version of the cartoon
Post actual episodes from any version of the cartoon
Use music, whether it be intro music or background music
Use other peoples' fanart
If you're to draw the video yourself, you can't use the exact story from an episode, unless it's a general clich&#233; or something

If anyone wants to help with this copyright info thread, by adding to any of the lists, please don't hesitate to give us your input.

Latios supplied me with this later in the thread:

Originally Posted by Latios

Here's Latios with a lesson in Copyrights (because I went insane in 2003 over Pokemon anime bootleggers).

About reproduction.
1. The hard part about reproduction is, when is it right, and when is it wrong.
2. The reason why music reproduction is allowed is back in the days of prerecorded tapes, tapes were fragile devices. Put them on a large speaker, boom erased. Within months, boom distortions. It's a wonder why the court hasn't changed this law given the logic of the next point.
3. The reason why game reporduction is not allowed is because the original media they're on is not subject to fragility as tapes. Indeed, many NES games back in the 80's still work perfectly, minus any battery backup device they used. The case actually might not be so much justifable, considering how fragile CDs and DVDs are compared to cartridges.
4. Recording stuff off a TV is fine, why else is there VHS? In fact, that was the very reason why it exists, minus the whole Betamax fiasco.
5. If you do make a reproduction, it's only legal if it's for yourself or for your immediately family for some special reason (the example I remember was a man creating a mix tape for his brother who was getting married). Since it's only for yourself, technically, you're not distributing it. Though with TV VHS recordings, it's a gray area.

About distribution.
1. The creator and publisher has all distribution rights to the product. Nobody else, unless gotten explicit written permission from the company or the creator, can distribute the product in any shape, form, or fashion.
2. Downloading anime means killing the potential overseas company, and the main company losing money on potential selling of DVD's. While it won't affect them much (I don't think) for a raw TV recording, copying a DVD and uploading it hampers the sales.
3. Nobody other than the company itself is authorized to distribute the product. The way the TV program's creators make money is by selling the product. How can they make money if their product is litterally being given away?

About Editing
1. Modifying the content is illegal due mostly in part that it would go against what the original copyright owner intended. Though censorship may be allowed, simply because the distributor has the right to not distribute the product (which if popular will have no other choice but to comply) unless it's modified, and of course, to comply with national laws.
2. Another justification why modifying is illegal is because you're taking someone else's work and planting it in your own (AKA, plagarism).

About Fair Use
1. There's a condition in copyright laws called fair use. Meaning, you can use copyrighted material for specific purposes only. If you want to use a passage from an encyclopedia, you can provided you give credit, and you're not making money off of it. Otherwise, you'd have to go through a waiting period of requesting, and then waiting for a response. This was established because technically nobody could use anything that was copyrighted for any purpose, when such material could very well be the most perfect example.
2. If used for educational and/or informational purposes, it's under fair use.
3. If the company does not have the potential to lose any money. Falls in conjunction with #2.
4. If there is no other way to present the information (tricky).
5. If it's of a much lower quality than the original (though it has to fall in line with the others).

Why uploaded anime is illegal:
Because the person who uploaded it is acting as a distributor, which was established that unless you're the holder of the copyright, you can't do.

Why AMV's are "illegal" to upload:
Because they contain content in which was edited, is not for education/informational use, and is typically in the same quality as the original. Not only that, it contains a full-length song, which was established that if you do reproduce the music, it must only be for yourself.

GAH!! no wonder my amv got removed!! but my guess what right though :/ since Sunrise almost sued YouTube because of the Gundam Seed & Gundam Seed Destniy episodes and such *sighs* pretty soon amv's will be banned all together

NO! I spent a lot of my time making my AMVs... you'll be pretty shocked how many I've placed on Youtube. T___T Guess I'll have to take away my threads that linked to them. *Deletes*

Formerly known as Brian Powell

Check these out:
Thanks for the card, SkiksPokemon Impact (PG13):
Series: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (Cancelled)
Starring Black Jack, a veteran pokemon trainer who saves the lives of others while breaking necks of his enemies in cold blood. You want action? You got action!(Continue or Reboot? That is the question.)

Yeah I'm sad too, I got banned from Youtube a few days ago for making my AMVs and Fandubs. It's because of some company known as "SHOGAKUKAN PRODUCTION CO., LTD" . But there's still one place that I know is safe for now, and that site I'm talking about is Putfile.com

Oh darnit. I uploaded a video which involved me dancing to the pokemon theme. The only thing I used was the theme.... nothing else. The rest of it was me throwing toy pokeballs around >.<.... It'll probably get deleted for copyright damnit.

I wasn't surprised about this due to the fact that producing AMVs and subs are against the international copyrights laws--if that actually exist--from the very beginning. Not to mention that using songs that are already on the market also count as copyright infringement. I think it is safe to say that it best that we can olny make the following medias: live movies (with original music), remix of music from various video games, and flash movies. But with International copyright involved, it may be possible to only post "Deviant quallity" works.

Hopefully we can still make and post videos of our Pokemon battles on both the GBA and Gamecube PKMN games, if Nintendo and Gamefreak inc. are fine with that. Besides, so far I saw none of those videos got removed from youtube so far.

Last edited by Dr. MECha; 6th November 2006 at 11:47 PM.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein

Sigh... It's always disappointing when they do things like this. Normally, anime companies have been fairly lax with AMVs and fansubs. Very few fansubbing groups are sent cease and desist, and most of the time this is by American companies who now own the liscense and want free fansubs to stop. And they didn't out right sue you, like the RIAA.

But now Japanese companies are also taking legal action. Very disappointing.

Well, while not enforced that much, it has always been illegal. In any case, these things were most likely continue, though thru more private means.

Yeah, I feel bad about all of this. :/ SHOGAKUKAN PRODUCTION CO., LTD. is the company that owns the rights to the Pokemon anime in Japan, and it really was surprising to me that they'd suddenly create such a huge wave of backlash in the AMV community.

Have any of you ever been to an anime convention before? I have. Have you ever witness an AMV competition there? I have. Will there be any more of them now? Probably not. u_u

Should be noted that while they're not permitted generally, anime conventions pretty much allow the making and showing of AMVs. Though only professionally made ones that are actually any good, unlike the usual YouTube AMVs which involve slapping an unfitting song (usually rock) with a buncha fansubbed anime clips, leaving the fansubs in plain view along with the lil' DivX logo.

While I'm not an AMV maker, I have a question about copyright pertaining to the usage of clips and things like that. I was told in a web design class that as long as you don't go over 30 seconds of a song or more than 3 minutes/10% of a movie(would episodes count here?), it was okay to use a part of song or movie as long as you also gave credit. Are the laws different for things like Pokemon and other anime because they come from Japan, or does Youtube just not want to risk being sued?